[Updated: Former Congressman Bob Ney (R-OH) responds to this article. Ney, convicted for his dealings with Abramoff, including a trip to Scotland, suggests Feeney may have been helped off the hook by friends in high places. See details and Ney's comments in UPDATE at bottom of story.]

Late last week, alleged vote-rigging conspirator and former three-term Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL) was informed that the Department of Justice was dropping their two year probe into his 2003 lobbyist-paid junket with Jack Abramoff to play golf in Scotland, according to his attorney Robert Luskin (who also happens to be Karl Rove's criminal attorney).

The DoJ's investigation was stymied earlier this year by an appellate court decision disallowing their subpoena of Feeney's statements to the U.S. House Ethics Commission on the basis of Constitutional separation of powers. As we noted last month, the friendly Feeney finding was likely to foul the fed's felony fact-finding against the failed former Florida Congressman.

The Ethics Commission had, themselves, let Feeney off the hook on the last day in which Republicans controlled the panel before Democrats took over in 2007. He would agree to pay just $5,643 for the private plane trip and swanky vacation with rightwing lobbyists, despite court papers declaring the trip to have been worth approximately $20,000...

Prior to Feeney's 2003 trip, currently indicted former Majority Whip Tom Delay (R-TX) enjoyed a similar trip with Abramoff in 2000, and in 2002 it was Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH)'s turn. Ney pleaded guilty to charges related to his dealings with the convicted lobbyist and served 17 month in federal prison.

[Update: Ney has replied in comments, in response to this article. See UPDATE at bottom of story for details.]

"Life's too short to be bitter," Feeney told FLORIDA TODAY earlier this week. "But I guess most people would be very, very bitter."

No, Tom. Most people, having done what you know you did, would be damned relieved to have gotten off the hook as easily as you did. Just ask Delay or Ney. But nicely done, playing the victim there.

Feeney reportedly spent some $270,000 in campaign funds for "legal services" in fighting the case, according to FEC fiings. "He also paid more than $106,000 to a Baltimore-based consulting firm that specializes in e-mail recovery and computer forensics," FT reported, and "In the first six months of this year alone, Feeney spent $118,000 on fees related to the investigation." Money well spent. Though it's unclear if those who donated to his campaign would agree.

The former Congressman lost his seat in 2008 to Democrat Suzanne Kosmas, despite his having, literally, carved the once-conservative 24th Congressional district out for himself when he served as Speaker of the Florida House.

The BRAD BLOG has been closely following Feeney --- who named among Congress' "Most Corrupt" for four years in a row by a non-partisan D.C. ethics watchdog organization --- ever since late 2004 when a then-Republican computer programmer, Clint Curtis, alleged Feeney had asked him to create a vote-rigging software prototype when they both worked at Yang Enterprises Inc. (YEI), an Oviedo, FL software firm. Feeney was their registered lobbyist and general counsel at the time, even as he was concurrently Speaker of Florida's House, and even as the company had millions of dollars in state contracts. Despite Curtis' sworn affidavit, video-taped Congressional testimony, and successful polygraph test on the matter, Feeney has maintained his innocence in the vote-rigging scheme. He has, however, long refused to take a polygraph examination as long-challenged by Curtis who would eventually run against Feeney, unsuccessfully, for the Congressional seat in 2006, in continuing hopes of bringing Feeney's corruption to light.

UPDATE: In comments left on this item, Ney himself has responded, in an apparent shot at some of his former colleagues, to wryly note:

Interesting decision, huh!!! Maybe I should have been on the ticket with the President's Brother a few years back Alberto Gonzales, wonder if he weighed in on this before exiting his job?".

The BRAD BLOG has confirmed the comments did, in fact, come from the convicted former Congressman who, having served his time, now hosts a daily radio show in Ohio. Ney's comment about being "on the ticket with the President's Brother a few years back" refers to Feeney's run for Lt. Governor, on Jeb Bush's ticket in Florida's 1994 Gubernatorial race. Bush/Feeney lost that year in a close race, but would go on to win, without Feeney on the ticket, in his second attempt in 1998.

Interesting decision, huh!!! Maybe I should have been on the ticket with the President's Brother a few years back
Alberto Gonzales, wonder if he weighed in on this before exiting his job?http://www.wvly.net
Bob Ney Radio Show
1-3 pm Monday-Friday

Lest we forget, Brad, in Florida 2000, it was the staffers from the offices of Republican Congressmen Tom DeLay and Tom Sweeney who, along with the future U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, barged into the Miami-Dade canvassing board, demanding an immediate halt to a court-ordered recount.

To most Americans, the "Brooks Brothers riot" appeared to be a spontaneous protest coming from clean cut guys in starched white shirts and ties --- thanks to a corporate media which failed to reveal their identity. In actuality, it was nothing more than a carefully orchestrated, Nazi brown-shirt like riot that amounted to a direct assault on democracy and the rule of law.

The count stopped, never to start again.

But, of course, this turned out to be but an opening salvo in a still ongoing assault not only on democracy and the rule of law but on the very essence of human dignity on a global scale.

Disgusting...! Feeney is as filthy as you can get...
Rove has stated in the past that he will 'name names' - which sounds like blackmail. Think there might by any relation between the DoJ's decision to drop the Feeney investigation and Rove's closed-door session the other day?
Of course there is...

In his 2005 congressional financial disclosure report, Feeny listed a condo at 8600 Ridgewood Ave., Unit #2308, Cape Canaveral, as an asset. But I couldn't find any record of him owning that property in Brevard County records.

In 2006, the condo was listed as rental property under the name of Beach Partners II, implying that there was a Beach Partners I. In any event, there is no Beach Partners II listed with the Florida Secretary of State.

In 2007, the property was again listed under Beach Partners II as rental property.

The condo is now appraised at $189k so it is not an earthshaking issue but I wonder why the Brevard County records don't match Feeney's financial disclosures.

I checked Brevard County property appraiser records and found nothing past 2003. When I checked the Brevard County Tax Collector website, I found that James Fowler, Trustee, has apparently owned the condo for years and various entities have paid the taxes. Baker Hostetler, East-West Partnership, Fowler himself, etc. Wells Fargo has paid the bill for the last few years which makes sense if WF holds the mortgage.

The last court record is dated 2004 and it is an assignment of a mortgage.